Life sentence urged for human-smuggling suspect

Life sentence urged for smuggling suspectProsecutors say a less harsh punishment fails to consider that 19 died

Published 5:30 am, Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Prosecutors are asking a federal judge to give a much harsher sentence than normal, life in prison, to the accused leader of a botched smuggling effort that resulted in the deaths of 19 illegal immigrants.

Karla Patricia Chavez Joya, 28, "has pled and been convicted of a conspiracy resulting in the death of 19 individuals and the greatest loss of human life associated with alien smuggling in contemporary history," prosecutors allege.

Chavez's attorney, John LaGrappe, says in a sentencing recommendation filed Monday that his client is less to blame than the prosecution's key witness, Abelardo Flores.

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LaGrappe says in the recommendation that Chavez showed her concern for the immigrants' welfare by chasing and trying to stop a tractor-trailer packed with more than 74 immigrants suffering in life-threatening conditions.

While Chavez was chasing the truck, Flores "was having an alcohol- and cocaine-induced party with two prostitutes in the very hotel room where he paid truck driver Tyrone Williams for his services," the recommendation says.

Flores — who recruited Williams and, according to testimony, shut the trailer door after the immigrants were loaded — pleaded guilty and has been an important witness for the prosecution in three trials in the case.

In a document filed last week, prosecutors argue that a probation office sentencing report recommending a prison sentence ranging from 14 to 17 1/2 years fails to consider the number of deaths.

The sentencing guidelines make "no distinction between one death or 100," prosecutors say.

They are asking U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore to add additional punishment for each of the 18 deaths.

Chavez and 13 others were arrested after the discovery on May 14, 2003, of 17 bodies in and near a trailer abandoned at a truck stop in Victoria. Two others died in a hospital.

The victims were among at least 74 illegal immigrants loaded into the trailer in Harlingen to be smuggled to Houston.

The filing by lead prosecutor Daniel Rodriguez argues that the recommended sentence "fails to account for the unusually heinous, cruel, brutal, and degrading conduct that was inflicted on the victims."

He says riders in the sealed trailer were so dehydrated, they drank their own urine and sucked on sweat-soaked clothing.